Mountain Top yard or Penobscot yard is a

rail yard A rail yard, railway yard, railroad yard (US) or simply yard, is a series of tracks in a rail network for storing, sorting, or loading and unloading rail vehicles and locomotives. Yards have many tracks in parallel for keeping rolling stock or u ...

Mountain Top, Pennsylvania Mountain Top is an unincorporated area and census-designated place (CDP) in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, United States. As of the 2010 census, the CDP population was 10,982. The Mountain Top CDP is located along Pennsylvania Route 309 (south of ...

. It was built by the

Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company The Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company was a mining and transportation company headquartered in Mauch Chunk, Pennsylvania, now known as Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania. The company operated from 1818 until its dissolution in 1964 and played an early and i ...

(LC&N) in response to an 1837 bill authorizing a right of way and was established by 1840, at least as a construction camp for the Ashley Planes, in support of the construction of the

Lehigh and Susquehanna Railroad The Lehigh and Susquehanna Railroad is a defunct railroad that operated in eastern Pennsylvania during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The company was a subsidiary of the Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company (LC&N), but for much of its lifetim ...

trackage and operations to join the northern

Anthracite Anthracite, also known as hard coal, and black coal, is a hard, compact variety of coal that has a submetallic luster. It has the highest carbon content, the fewest impurities, and the highest energy density of all types of coal and is the hig ...

Coal Region The Coal Region is a region of Northeastern Pennsylvania. It is known for being home to the largest known deposits of anthracite, anthracite coal in the world with an estimated reserve of seven billion short tons. The region is typically define ...

from barge loading docks along the Susquehanna (above and below the

Navigations Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or engineered channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport vehicles (e.g. water taxi). They carry free, calm surface flo ...

of the Pennsylvania Canal) in

Pittston Pittston is a city in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is situated between Scranton and Wilkes-Barre in Northeastern Pennsylvania. The city gained prominence in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as an active anthracite coal ...

, in the

Wyoming Valley The Wyoming Valley is a historic industrialized region of Northeastern Pennsylvania. The region is historically notable for its influence in helping fuel the American Industrial Revolution with its many anthracite coal-mines. As a metropolitan are ...

, with the

Lehigh Canal The Lehigh Canal, or the Lehigh Navigation Canal, is a navigable canal that begins at the mouth of Nesquehoning Creek on the Lehigh River in eastern Pennsylvania. It was built in two sections over a span of twenty years, beginning in 1818. The low ...

History

Penobscot Knob Penobscot Knob, also Penobscot Mountain, is a summit located in the western fringe of the Poconos nearest to Mountain Top, Pennsylvania which in the Solomon Gap pass below it lies an important multi-modal transportation corridor. At one time befo ...

or Mount Penobscot, looming above the local terrain, was one of the last terrain obstacles to north-south travel — following after several barrier ranges in the

ridge-and-valley Appalachians The Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians, also called the Ridge and Valley Province or the Valley and Ridge Appalachians, are a physiographic province of the larger Appalachian division and are also a belt within the Appalachian Mountains extending ...

above the improvements to the

Lehigh River The Lehigh River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed April 1, 2011 tributary of the Delaware River in eastern Pennsylvania. The river flows in a generally southward pat ...

, allowing water transport over 80 miles inland from Philadelphia's piers — a barrier therefore preventing west to east shipping of coal in the fading days of the

canal era Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or engineered channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport vehicles (e.g. water taxi). They carry free, calm surface flow und ...

, but one in which railroad technology was leaping ahead year by year. LC&N, a high-tech company and major corporation of the 1820s-1870s, had already built the

and the country's second railroad, the Mauch Chunk & Summit Hill Railroad, to ship coal the ten miles of

gravity railroad A gravity railroad (American English) or gravity railway (British English) is a railroad on a slope that allows cars carrying minerals or passengers to coast down the slope by the force of gravity alone. The speed of the cars is controlled by a bra ...

to the loading facility above the head end of the improved

and the

Delaware Canal The Delaware Division of the Pennsylvania Canal, more commonly called the Delaware Canal, runs for parallel to the right bank of the Delaware River from the entry locks near the mouth of the Lehigh River and terminal end of the Lehigh Canal at E ...

and

Delaware River The Delaware River is a major river in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. From the meeting of its branches in Hancock (village), New York, Hancock, New York, the river flows for along the borders of N ...

. The large yard, and the purpose-built

company town A company town is a place where practically all stores and housing are owned by the one company that is also the main employer. Company towns are often planned with a suite of amenities such as stores, houses of worship, schools, markets and re ...

Sayre, Pennsylvania Sayre is a borough in Bradford County, Pennsylvania. It is part of Northeastern Pennsylvania. It is the principal city in the Sayre, PA Micropolitan Statistical Area. It lies 18 miles southeast of Elmira, New York, and 30 miles southwest of Bing ...

, were founded as part of a planned program of expansion and extension to the young railroad's infrastructure—the yard was but one benchmark on the way to completing the goal of establishing competitive passenger rail service between New York City, as well as cities in

Delaware Delaware ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Maryland to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and New Jersey and the Atlantic Ocean to its east. The state takes its name from the adjacent Del ...

such as Wilmington, cities in central

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

such as Trenton, and Eastern Pennsylvania cities including

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

with

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

and other Great Lakes Cities via

Buffalo, New York Buffalo is the second-largest city in the U.S. state of New York (behind only New York City) and the seat of Erie County. It is at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of the Niagara River, and is across the Canadian border from South ...

. The Lehigh Valley was primarily first and foremost a coal road which transported high-grade

to the big cities of the east and to steel mills along the

Great Lakes The Great Lakes, also called the Great Lakes of North America, are a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes in the mid-east region of North America that connect to the Atlantic Ocean via the Saint Lawrence River. There are five lakes ...

and to the area in and around Chicago. The yard is a waypoint along the historic rail corridor that extends along the left bank

Susquehanna River The Susquehanna River (; Lenape: Siskëwahane) is a major river located in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, overlapping between the lower Northeast and the Upland South. At long, it is the longest river on the East Coast of the ...

through the RBMN Duryea Yard and Mountain Top Yards down along the route of the historic Lehigh Canal and across the Delaware at

Easton, Pennsylvania Easton is a city in, and the county seat of, Northampton County, Pennsylvania, United States. The city's population was 28,127 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. Easton is located at the confluence of the Lehigh River, a river tha ...

. Late in 1871, the competing upstarts calling themselves the

Lehigh Valley Railroad The Lehigh Valley Railroad was a railroad built in the Northeastern United States to haul anthracite coal from the Coal Region in Pennsylvania. The railroad was authorized on April 21, 1846 for freight and transportation of passengers, goods, w ...

(LV) established themselves above and across the same pass in 1871 and extended that storied road to

Sayre Yard Historic Sayre Yard, named after the chief engineer and first superintendent of the Lehigh Valley Railroad (LV), was established across the state line in 1876 in Waverly, Tioga County, New York, Waverly, New York and Sayre, Pennsylvania. The large ...

, astride the state line between Waverly, New York and

. Until its dismantlement under

Conrail Conrail , formally the Consolidated Rail Corporation, was the primary Class I railroad in the Northeastern United States between 1976 and 1999. The trade name Conrail is a portmanteau based on the company's legal name. It continues to do busin ...

, the yard engine maintenance building had the largest structure in the United States devoted to the maintenance and construction of railroad locomotives. The yard was acquired by

Reading Blue Mountain and Northern Railroad The Reading Blue Mountain and Northern Railroad , sometimes shortened to Reading and Northern Railroad, is a regional railroad in eastern Pennsylvania. Its headquarters is in Port Clinton. The RBMN provides freight service on of track. Its mainl ...

in 1996 during the dissolution of

, which had acquired the property in 1976 when the

joined its properties to that ill-fated conglomerate enterprise.

Geography

, is a railroad town once named Penobscot,Penobscot, Pennsylvania
/ref> built beside the yard to house its employees and those of the nearby mines. The town is located at (41.1353022, -75.9044749) in the shadow of Mount Penobscot (or Penobscot Knob) and is located in the saddle-shaped

mountain pass A mountain pass is a navigable route through a mountain range or over a ridge. Since many of the world's mountain ranges have presented formidable barriers to travel, passes have played a key role in trade, war, and both Human migration, human a ...

atop the

ridgeline A ridge or a mountain ridge is a geographical feature consisting of a chain of mountains or hills that form a continuous elevated crest for an extended distance. The sides of the ridge slope away from the narrow top on either side. The line ...

between the

basin to the north and west and the

basin to the east and south, so sits astride an important land communications corridor bridging the two watersheds below. It is northwest of White Haven at the head end of the

Lehigh River gorge Lehigh River Gorge is a gorge A canyon (from ; archaic British English spelling: ''cañon''), or gorge, is a deep cleft between escarpments or cliffs resulting from weathering and the erosive activity of a river over geologic time scales. River ...

and in the heights above

Hazleton, Pennsylvania Hazleton is a city in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 29,963 at the 2020 census. Hazleton is the second largest city in Luzerne County. It was incorporated as a borough on January 5, 1857, and as a city on Decembe ...

, south of

Wilkes-Barre Wilkes-Barre ( or ) is a city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Luzerne County. Located at the center of the Wyoming Valley in Northeastern Pennsylvania, it had a population of 44,328 in the 2020 census. It is the secon ...

Pennsylvania Route 309 Pennsylvania Route 309 (PA 309) is a state highway that runs for 134 miles (216 km) through eastern Pennsylvania. The route runs from an interchange between Pennsylvania Route 611, PA 611 and Cheltenham Avenue on the border of Philadelphia an ...

. Consequently, even though regional railroads are much diminished in scope and influence, Mountain Top yard, once used as a marshaling yard at the top of the

Ashley Planes Ashley Planes was a historic freight cable railroad situated along three separately powered inclined plane sections located between Ashley, Pennsylvania at the foot, and via the Solomon cutting the yard in Mountain Top over above and initially bu ...

funicular A funicular (, , ) is a type of cable railway system that connects points along a railway track laid on a steep slope. The system is characterized by two counterbalanced carriages (also called cars or trains) permanently attached to opposite en ...

(cable driven) railway, is still an important regional element of the transportation infrastructure connecting Allentown and Philadelphia with points north and west via trackage to several yards in New York State. Mountain Top's yard was the upper terminal end of the historic

's Ashley Planes funicular railways (first begun 1837), which lifted freight over the steep climb from the Ashley neighborhood in Wilkes-Barre and site of a large transfer yard bypassed by the former trackage of the

and leased to the

Central Railroad of New Jersey The Central Railroad of New Jersey, also known as the Jersey Central or Jersey Central Lines , was a Class I railroad with origins in the 1830s. It was absorbed into Conrail in April 1976 along with several other prominent bankrupt railroads of ...

. Mountain Top is elevated at above sea level.

References

{{reflist Rail yards in Pennsylvania Pennsylvania railroads Transportation buildings and structures in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania 1837 establishments in Pennsylvania